He only needed a few minutes alone in Roger's office. Olivia was still asleep on the sofa, whatever Roger had drugged her with was strong. She didn't even stir when Gregory brushed a hand over her hair and tried vainly to jump start his memory. This was his wife, touching her should evoke a thousand different emotions but he didn't feel anything. The same quiet numbness that filled his heart refused to give way to feelings of familiarity.
"I love you." Whispering it to her seemed right, fitting even, but he couldn't remember saying it before. He couldn't conjure up the feeling behind it. The emotions he knew he had to have were gone.
But he remembered being Gregory Richards. He knew Roger kept clothes in the back of his office. He knew they'd fit, he knew how to tie his shoes, how to button up his shirt, but he didn't remember her. He didn't remember conceiving their child, but he remembered running from Cole and choking the life out of him. He knew Sean, he felt when he hugged Sean and thanked God that he was still alive to be with his son.
But he couldn't remember a daughter. The picture in Sean's hand didn't mean anything. When Roger had started talking about Caitlin his first thought was that Caitlin was the child Olivia was carrying. They must have known that Olivia carried a girl and Caitlin was a lovely name.
But she wasn't lovely. Something was wrong with Caitlin. It was in Roger's eyes when he dodged Gregory's questions. It was in the tightness in Sean's forehead that aged him ten years. Wrong seared outward from his son's eyes. But no one dared tell him the truth.
He'd get out the dammed hospital and remember. Turn his house upside down until he remembered everything. Gregory looked at himself in the mirror and saw the business he knew. The circles beneath his eyes were dark, but no darker than after a long day at the office. He didn't look like a man who had clung to the precipice and looked out over death.
Was that why he couldn't remember? Death was the natural, inevitable conclusion to his existence. Death was acceptable. Leaving Olivia was not. Alex had made him promise that.
Kneeling down in front of the sofa, Gregory thought of Alex. Felt her hand on his shoulder as he stared down in Olivia's angelic face. He spared a moment to wonder if he had always found her so beautiful. Did he appreciate the high curves of her cheekbones and the softness of her lips when he had years of memory to tie them too?
He repeated apologetically. "Everyone says I love you but I-" Gregory ran his hand through his hair and sighed as he realized he needed a shower. "I can't remember. I look at you and I feel like I've only just met you. You could be anyone and I'd have to trust that I love you." Struck with the urge to kiss her, Gregory leaned down but stopped a moment from touching her. He couldn't kiss her. He didn't know her. He didn't have her permission.
Instead he traced a long curl of her hair and followed it down her arm. In March their baby was due. That gave him just over three months to find himself again. His responsibility for this child was great and though he couldn't remember exactly why, guilt roared upwards in his throat.
Was it that she didn't want the baby? No. Even in her drug induced sleep her arm encircled her stomach protectively. She loved their baby. He'd overheard the argument that raged between Bette and Roger while they thought he was asleep.
Bette felt guilty sedating her best friend, continuing to lie about Gregory being awake when Olivia should have been with him the moment he woke up. Roger just sighed and admitted that he wasn't ready to see her. He didn't know who she was. Could she imagine how devastating it would have been for Olivia if he had looked up at her and asked who she was?
Olivia opened her eyes, lashes fluttering dark against her cheek. Gregory smiled, reminding himself that she needed his confidence. "Hey sweetheart. Ready to go home?"
Throwing a bucket of ice water over her would have been less cruel. Jumping back from him as if he were a threat, Olivia's right hand closed down on his shoulder to steady herself. He wasn't prepared for the change in balance, her legs swung around over the edge of the sofa and he fell back as she leaned forward. Together they tumbled back to the floor of Roger's office. Instinctually he caught her and pulled her to his chest, letting his back take the brunt of the fall.
Gregory bit his lip in surprise as pain lanced through his abused body. Pain was nothing. Only a manifestation of the body's desire to avoid damage and he could force that away. Olivia's eyes were tearing up and he wasn't sure he could handle watching her cry over him when he remembered so little of feelings that she was struggling with.
Laughing instead, he brushed her hair and smiled up into the stricken eyes above him. "It's all right."
She blinked, losing the fight against her tears but imitating his smile. "Gregory-"
He kissed her cheek, wishing he could understand why she was trembling. "I'm fine Liv." The nickname sparked a vague flash of familiarity, but only earned more tears.
Olivia turned his head and kissed his lips, desperately proving to herself that he was no dream. That he was real and as alive as the child within her. Gregory tried not to think about the kiss. His lips might remember her better than his mind did and the last thing he wanted to do was force her to face the emptiness he felt.
She didn't notice. Her hands held on to him, even as her fingers shook with relief. "I thought, oh god Gregory, I thought I lost-" Breaking off, she just shook her head at him and bored into his eyes.
Gregory buried his discomfort and reminded himself to smile. "I'm still here-" He sat her up, trying to find the right emotions. Anything more than a raging sense of guilt. "And we're going home."
"Home?" Olivia leaned back against the sofa, keeping her hand on his face. "How can we go home? Surely they didn't-"
Shrugging as he stood up and brushed himself off with as much nonchalance as he could muster, Gregory winked. "I'm a fast healer."
"But darling-" Her feet were as steady as he hoped and Gregory had to catch her firmly to keep her standing. He wanted someone else to take responsibility for her. Give him the time to think, but she snuggled into his arms, sighing in relief as she gave up her argument.
"Let's go home." Olivia agreed as she dried her eyes. "I hate it here."
Gregory saw Olivia run towards him down a hallway and collapse into his arms, sobbing as hot blood seeped through the gashes in her shirt to coat his hands. Assaulting him as it demanded to be recognized through the fog, the memory meant nothing. A single star in blackness of a foreign night. Gregory hunted it anyway, squeezing down on the feeling of helplessness clutching at his heart. The memory expanded. Police officers rushed around the corner, Olivia's first concern was the baby, and the corridor of the hospital stretched on forever as he had looked for her.
"Yes." Gregory offered as he wrapped an arm around her back. The gesture came without thinking and it comforted him almost as much as it meant to calm her. "You have every reason to." He'd find them out. It didn't matter if he had to relearn his own life piece by piece, Gregory would beat this.
No one stopped them on their way out of the hospital. Their driver picked them up and dropped them off at home. Rose lit up with relief when she answered the door and promised to get started on dinner. She was entirely correct when she'd commented that hospital food barely counted as food. Not that he even felt hungry.
Olivia had said very little on the trip home. At first he blamed exhaustion, but she kept meeting his eyes and turning away. When he tried to leave the sofa to get her a glass of water, she clung to his arm. Gregory stayed, pulling her into his chest and praying he'd know what to say when she finally managed to admit what was on the tip of her tongue.
"Do you remember what happened?"
He shook his head, pushing away the vague memories of holding her and trying to concentrate on the present. "No, nothing before waking up in the hospital."
Olivia's hand clung tighter to the collar of his stolen shirt, and Gregory wondered how many more minutes of freedom they had before Roger brought out the hounds to drag him back to the hospital.
"I wanted to be there." Her whispered guilt dug at his heart. Olivia had nothing to apologize for, nothing to feel this way about.
"Sean was there." He assured her as he counted himself lucky she'd been absent. "He was the first person I saw." How much would it hurt Olivia to know her husband barely remembered her?
That calmed her breathing and she let her hand relax a fraction. Whatever it was bothering her, she had to deal with it and it began with, "Caitlin-"
Olivia didn't get a chance to finish. Roger, Bette and Detective Torres burst into the quiet living room. Roger looked daggers at Gregory as he recognized the blue broadcloth shirt as his own. The detective stood at attention, his bearing spoke of tragedy as much as the smudged mascara down Bette's cheeks.
Bette took Olivia's hand and folded it in hers as she sat on the coffee table. "I'm sorry we barged in on you like this, Ricardo found out at the hospital he didn't know Gregory had taken you home."
Roger leaned in to whisper for him alone. "You're lucky I care about Olivia more than I want to drag you back to the hospital."
"He was going to tell you, but Livie, I think you should hear this from me." Bette swallowed as she looked up at her best friend. Ricardo stood in the corner, too formal to have anything but the worst news.
Olivia was too tired to notice the warnings. Too consumed with relief to realize there was anything outside of having Gregory home that mattered.
"They found her in Mexico. She'd been shot in the back of the head. The Federales are shipping her body home to the SBPD. The Deschanel jewels were still in her backpack..."
Olivia's sharp cry ripped at Gregory's heart and he focused on the sensation. He wanted to protect her, even if he had no idea what from.
She tried to pull her hands back, but Bette held on. "Caitlin's dead Livie."
Pushing Bette away as hard as she could, Olivia clung to him, sliding over the edge into a torrent of emotion. Gregory accepted Bette's apology without knowing what she had said. He protected Olivia without asking why she couldn't speak anymore. He gestured Roger in close with his free hand, lowering his voice so no one heard.
"Why?" There were so many questions. Why was she in Mexico? What were the Deschanel jewels? Why did everyone look at him as if Caitlin had made a pact with the devil? What did the devil want?